.NET 7 What's New

Microsoft has announced the latest .NET release - version 7, for November 2022. Let's cover the highlights of this latest .NET release for software engineers and give you links to jump in for more information as needed.

What is .NET

.NET is open-source, cross-platform, and free. It can be used to build a large variety of applications across many different environments. This includes:

• desktop applications across multiple operating systems including Windows, macOS, Linux
• mobile applications across Windows, Android, and IOS devices
• web applications
• games across all those platforms

As a developer, knowing .NET and being familiar with its capabilities and its technology roadmap can be very beneficial to your career goals and career path.

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Performance Improvements

It appears the key focus for .NET 7 is in performance. Here are some key areas where performance was improved:

Compilation

Numerous improvements were made to the compilation process in order to improve both compilation and runtime speed. Improvements were also made to the resulting executables to make them even more self-contained with no external dependencies.

JSON Serialization

Improvements were made giving the software developer more control over contract serialization, especially with JSON formats. This is important because as software engineers we spend a lot of time and code moving data in and out of JSON format.

Regular Expressions

So helpful and yet so painful at times - this is our relationship with regular expressions right?! The latest .NET 7 release introduces significant performance improvements to the core regular expression library.

Many .NET Library Improvements

Performance improvements have been made across many .NET libraries. Here are some key areas to name a few of the most used:

• DateTime
• Tar archives
• Stream reading
• Additional type converters
• Unix file permission helpers
• JavaScript run-time interop

CLI Improvements

Improvements have been made to the.NET SDK CLI as well. These improvements include stronger 'dotnet new' command options, publishing to containers, and central package management with NuGet.

Related Releases

Here's a list of related products whose releases will coincide with .NET 7:

• Visual Studio 2022 v17.4
• C# 11
• F# 7
• .NET MAUI
• ASP.NET Core
• EF Core
• Windows Forms
• WPF
• Orleans
• ML.NET

Wrap-Up: .NET 7 Release

Microsoft continues to improve on its ubiquitous .NET framework. And they smartly improve on key related products along with it like Visual Studio, C#, ASP.NET Core, and EF Core.

As a software developer, it makes good career sense to stay current on .NET's capabilities. With its reach across so many platforms and situations, there are a lot of software engineer career opportunities out there for you!

Here's a link to the formal Microsoft Learn .NET 7 What's New page. Jump in to follow additional links and drill into more detail specific to your interests.

What’s new in .NET 7

Learn about the new features introduced in .NET 7.

Microsoft Learngewarren

First Book Out

It looks like the first .NET 7 book just came out this month from what I can see. Here's the info below in case you want to check it out. It also covers C# 11, ASP.NET Core, Blazor, EF Core, Visual Studio 2022, and more.